From Zero to SAS: Using SAS Studio to Summarize and Manipulate Your Data Ask The Expert

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From Zero to SAS: Using SAS Studio to Summarize and Manipulate Your Data Q&A, Slides, and On-Demand Recording

Watch this Ask the Expert session to learn how to point and click your way to summarizing and manipulating data with SAS Studio before analysis. 

Watch the webinar

You will learn about:

• The features of various versions of SAS Studio.
• Using Tasks and Steps in SAS Studio to manipulate and summarise data.

The questions from the Q&A segment held at the end of the webinar are listed below and the slides from the webinar are attached.

Q&A

Answered

Where does SAS Enterprise 8.3 belong?

Enterprise Guide 8.3 is a different application than SAS Studio. Although, it can also be used to write and develop SAS code and use point-and-click functionality to generate code. Enterprise Guide is a Windows application, while SAS Studio is browser-based.

Can you save an autoexecute file in SAS Studio on SAS 9?

Yes, there is the ability to create and save an autoexec file in all versions of SAS Studio. In SAS Studio on SAS 9, it's under the More Application Options menu in the upper right corner.

SAS Studio 3.8 - Editing the Autoexec File

In SAS Studio on SAS Viya, access the autoexec using the Options button on the Application menu.

You can add to that, or you can copy and paste it and put it into another SAS program.

SAS Studio 2024.x -  Editing the Autoexec File

How do I get dark theme in SAS Studio?

There isn't currently an option to view in dark theme in SAS Studio 3.8.

For SAS Viya 2024.x

User icon (top right of the application bar) > Settings> General> Choose a theme drop-down menu.

What is the best browser to run SAS studio on SAS 9?

SAS Studio supports multiple web browsers, including Google Chrome, Apple Safari, and Mozilla Firefox. Some releases of SAS Studio also support Microsoft Internet Explorer and Microsoft Edge. I personally use Chrome. Here is a link to the documentation for more information: https://support.sas.com/software/products/sas-studio/faq/SASStudio_browsers.htm#:~:text=SAS%20Studio....

Can you show how you linked them at the end again?

You can click on the output port (on the right side) of one node and drag to the input port (on the left side) of another node.

Did you say there is a free SAS Studio version online? If yes, how can I access it?

Yes! Here's the link to SAS On-Demand for Academics, which is free access to SAS Studio 3.8 on SAS 9. It is available for anyone learning SAS, whether you are an official student or not: https://www.sas.com/en_us/software/on-demand-for-academics.html If you want to try SAS Studio on SAS Viya, then here is a link to the 14-day free trial: https://www.sas.com/en_us/trials/software/viya/viya-trial-form.html

If you are a student with a university email you can access SAS Viya for Learners.

Here is the link for SAS® Viya for Learners

What is SAS Studio? What’s different from other SAS interfaces?

We have lots of different applications in SAS and they're all designed to do something slightly different. The applications used for writing and submitting SAS code are mainly Base SAS (also called the Windowing environment, or the Display Manager), SAS Studio, and SAS Enterprise Guide. But the application that's generally compared to SAS Studio is SAS Enterprise Guide. They both have the point-and-click interface and they both can write and submit code. The biggest difference between the two is the fact that you can use SAS Studio on a web browser, whereas SAS Enterprise Guide is a Microsoft Windows application. But they are generally quite similar.

You seem to have a lot more options in the SAS Steps section. Is it because I'm running another version of SAS Studio Analyst (2022.09)?

Yes, that's definitely the case. We have added a lot more steps since that version. And we continue to add more with each release.

This link takes you to the most up-to-date documentation on flow functionality, including the steps available. Use the version drop-down menu to select your version of the software.

Do you have a list of best practices when using SAS Studio Visual Programming?

Please see this SAS Communities post for more information on the Visual Programming perspective. SAS Studio 3.8 Visual Programming

Is it possible to import process flows from EG?

When you open a SAS Enterprise Guide project in SAS Studio 3.8, the process flows in the project are extracted and converted to process flows in SAS Studio. For more information here -  Converting SAS Enterprise Guide Projects to SAS Studio Process Flows

For SAS Studio 2024.x, you would need to migrate the Enterprise Guide project. SAS Studio will endeavour to translate the tasks used in SAS Enterprise Guide into steps in SAS Studio. You want to make sure that SAS Studio has migrated the flow correctly. For more information Tips for SAS Enterprise Guide Users

Where is the SQL displayed and saved? And how many kinds of joins are in the dropdown list?

In SAS Studio 3.8

With the Code/Results view active in the Query task, select Edit to create a copy of the code in a new SAS program. Please note, the code is no longer connected to the task and vice versa.

There are 4 types of joins; inner, left, right and full join.

SAS Studio 2024.x

When using a Query step in a flow you can review/copy the generated code (as per picture below). This is for the whole flow.

When using a standalone query you can Edit the code, as per below screenshot.

There are currently 4 types of joins; inner, left, right and full join. Always check the most up-to-date documentation.

Can it handle large datasets with millions of records (>20 GB size)?

Yes, but performance always depends on the size of the SAS server provisioned behind the scenes.

Will the drag and drop join work, if the target columns from different tables are not named the same, or not formatted the same? For example, Country $20 vs. CTRY $2

Tables can be joined based on columns with different names. SAS automatically matches columns with the same name and type for the join. If no matches are found, a manual join can be performed.

Can it convert existing SAS code into a process flow?

Yes, you can convert existing SAS code into a flow in SAS Studio 2024.x. When the SAS program has been saved, either right-click on the .sas program using the Explorer section of the navigation pane and select Create flow from program or open the flow, click More Options (3 dots in the right of the program window) and select Create flow from program. Follow the instructions.

Do we have Chi-square testing functionality in the versions you demonstrated here?

Yes, you can achieve Chi-square testing functionality by using the One-Way Frequencies Task/Step.

• SAS Studio 3.8 – One-Way Frequencies Task: Setting Options
• SAS Studio 2024.x - One-Way Frequencies

I am a little confused as to the purpose of the City table in the process flow window. Can you explain?

The CityState column in the Employeesales SAS table contains the City and State. The demo extracted the state from the CityState column and created a new column called State, that only contained the last word (after the comma).

Do we have a similar webinar/training for SAS EG?

We do have lots of training for SAS Enterprise Guide.

• https://learn.sas.com/enterprise_guide
• Ask the Expert- SAS Enterprise Guide

Currently, we cannot connect to Unix and Local in EG, is that possible to do in Studio? Not sure if this is our enterprise limitation or not.

I would have to know a little bit more about what's going on in the set up. My advice would be to reach out to Technical Support and ask them to help if you're having any issues like that.

How do I export tables loaded in memory to local in SAS Viya?

You can use the PROC CASUTIL step with the SAVE statement to save an in-memory table to a variety of different file types (SASHDAT, SAS7BDAT, XLSX, CSV and others). Once the file is saved to disk, you can use the Explorer in SAS Studio to navigate to the file on your SAS Server, then right-click and select Download to download a copy to your local machine.

When you create flows by migrating multiple Data Integration Studio jobs, does it place the flow nodes? And does each node become its own node of code or is the migration tool smart enough to see the same node being used over and over and create just one reused node?

Please see Tips for SAS Data Integration Studio Users for information on migrating DI Studio jobs.

Recommended Resources

Many of the resources on this page are for SAS Studio 3.8

Whilst many resources on this page are for SAS Studio on SAS Viya (2024.x)

SAS Studio, SAS Studio Analyst & SAS Studio Engineer- oh my!

General Feature Comparison among SAS Studio Releases

What Is the Difference between SAS Studio Tasks and Custom Steps?

SAS OnDemand for Academics

Getting Started with SAS Studio - Youtube

Getting Started with SAS Studio - Tutorial

Overview of SAS Studio Tasks 5.2  (use the version drop-down menu to select your SAS studio version)

Understanding Tasks in SAS Studio 5.2 (use the version drop-down menu to select your SAS studio version)

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